Section B Ella 3 - Barefoot at Shanzu and Diary Writing

This lesson you are going to complete an exam task based on 'Barefoot at Shanzu' by Errol Trzebinski.


You need to read the question and the extract very carefully.


To approach this task you need to do two things.


1) Make sure you know what makes a diary a diary. What should your diary be doing?  Refer back to your work on diaries last lesson. Follow the link below for the overview given last lesson. It is good practice to make a note of the key features as this will help you to write the commentary. Think about the question: how many entries are you to write? What sort of time scale are you writing about?


Writing Diaries


2) Jot down all the details that you will need to include from the text that are relevant for the task. Think about the genre, the audience, the point of view you are writing from to help you make those decisions. What would an 11 year old boy be interested in and how would he have experienced the situations described by his mother? It is good practice to note all the elements that you will need to include from the text. You need to include as much detail as possible. To get all this information you need to understand all the vocabulary from the original text.




Once you have planned the points you want to use, you need to start writing it.


In the exam you have 40 minutes to complete this part of the task.


You then have 20 minutes to write a commentary.


Have a look at this overview of commentary writing (in your pack too): Commentary Writing


Have a look here for the type of approach you need to take. This example has good focus on lexis and semantics but does need some more grammar points. However it shows good awareness of audience and purpose.


Write a commentary for the piece of writing you have just done explaining how you made it sound like a diary, how you captured the voice of Bruce, what effects you were trying to create.